Hardware limitations... Confusing

[Standeraas]

Hi all,
thanks to all the contributors I have had this great opportunity to read this forum intensively and solve many of my questions.
I'm an absolute beginner in Hackintosh, let alone the AMD Hackintosh, but in the past I've done some Windows and Linux PC builds on AMD.
I've read the much quoted Dortania's guide as well and went through many tutorials on tonymacx86, youtube and other sites.

Now, at the moment I'm a bit confused with the hardware limitations. At first I assumed that you can configure basically any PC build and it will mostly run with correct EFI kexts and tinkering around. After some time I realised some stuff just don't work.
Limitations regarding the WiFi and BT adapters and cards were pretty much consistent.
However, when it comes to SSDs there are mixed opinions. Some people argue that roughly any drives are compatible and running with Hackintosh, others stick to the lists of compatible SSDs written already.

So this got me thinking a lot about my build. I'm still waiting to order parts, checking everything to make sure stuff has some chance of working properly.

Should I care about compatibility of other components? Like RAM for example? I thought that because the new Mac Pro now has configurable modules it should basically accept anything as long as it's running on the same speeds but maybe I'm missing something?

My build:

Motherboard: As a mainboard I chose ASRock X570 Taichi - I've read a lot of success stories based on this mobo.

CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X does the job very well, so I've read.

Graphics card: it's not an issue for me, I'm going to work with audio exclusively. I figured that just in case I had some demanding video apps I might choose ASRock Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming 8GB GDDR5, I think GPUs generally are not very troublesome? Maybe I'm wrong.

Drives: Finally, the M.2 drives.. I've seen people recommending the Samsung 970 EVO Plus and it has great speeds and capacity for good price. A-DATA on the other hands is some twice cheaper for similar specs. Am I missing something?

I guess PSU, case and other secondary components are not something to worry about.

What is essential for me:

• Stability, speed and good performance, compatibility with audio apps (DAWs, Pro Tools, plugins)
• Thunderbolt 3 connection (it works with add-in cards AFAIK)
• fast Internet connection, be it via ethernet cable or WiFi
• Airdrop

What I heard doesn't work but I don't need that therefore I'm not worrying about it:

• sleep
• hotplugging TB3 devices (it's ok as long as it works I might just plug and unplug prior to booting)
• updates (I'm on High Sierra on my MacBook and everything runs smoothly so I guess this is not an issue)

What would be nice to have but not essential:

• TimeMachine backups
• Dual boot with Windows on the second M.2 or SATA drive

I'm wondering whether different versions of OS X impose different hardware limitations or performance drains? I'm aiming at Mojave or Catalina.

If somebody has time and will to check my build with what they know and help me sort out this puzzle that'd be grand.
Thanks for reading and all the content here

 

[ardweebno]

My DAW is as follows:

• ASRock X570 Taichi
• Ryzen 5 3600
• 32GB G.Skill Triden 3200 RAM
• Intel P660 1TB NVMe SSD (boot & MacOS)
• Samsung Evo 840 Pro 1TB Sata SSD (random crap storage)
• PowerColor Red Dragon RX580 8GB GPU
• Broadcom Wifi card (BCM943602CS) + PCIe carrier card
• Focusrite 4i4 USB audio interface (this is also my sound output device)
• MacOS Catalina 10.15.6
• OpenCore 0.5.9

Someone has built a kext to support the Intel Wifi + BT built onto bhte board, but I have not tested this and would not plan it working flawlessly. This is why I bought the broadcom wifi + BT card. It just works and there isn't anything to configure or do.

What works:

• iMessage
• Continuity
• Facetime
• Handoff
• Pretty much everything works as it would on a real mac, with the exception of the Intel built-in Wifi + Bluetooth
• Built-in motherboard sound. It works, but sounds like hot garbage, especially compared to the output of the Focusrite. Built-in soundcards on the Ryzen boards are usually pretty bad under MacOS and I can confirm it sounded better under Windows 10. Probably best to avoid the built-in sound.
• Time machine
• Airdrop

What doesn't work:

• Sleep. Just don't mess with it. The cost of having a cheap, crazy fast mac is that it does not sleep.
• The built-in Intel wifi + BT

I haven't tested the TB3 port on the back, but it is supposed to work, albeit with the resctriction that your TB3 device must be plugged in a boot time as hot plug support doesn't yet work. However, that TB3 port in USB-C. mode works like a champ!

Using the common internet benchmark for Logic Pro X, I can playback 95 software tracks without glitching, or 105 with the CPU overclocked to 4.2Ghz.

 

[exaudium]

Hi all,
thanks to all the contributors I have had this great opportunity to read this forum intensively and solve many of my questions.
I'm an absolute beginner in Hackintosh, let alone the AMD Hackintosh, but in the past I've done some Windows and Linux PC builds on AMD.
I've read the much quoted Dortania's guide as well and went through many tutorials on tonymacx86, youtube and other sites.

Now, at the moment I'm a bit confused with the hardware limitations. At first I assumed that you can configure basically any PC build and it will mostly run with correct EFI kexts and tinkering around. After some time I realised some stuff just don't work.
Limitations regarding the WiFi and BT adapters and cards were pretty much consistent.
However, when it comes to SSDs there are mixed opinions. Some people argue that roughly any drives are compatible and running with Hackintosh, others stick to the lists of compatible SSDs written already.

So this got me thinking a lot about my build. I'm still waiting to order parts, checking everything to make sure stuff has some chance of working properly.

Should I care about compatibility of other components? Like RAM for example? I thought that because the new Mac Pro now has configurable modules it should basically accept anything as long as it's running on the same speeds but maybe I'm missing something?

My build:

Motherboard: As a mainboard I chose ASRock X570 Taichi - I've read a lot of success stories based on this mobo.

CPU: Ryzen 7 3700X does the job very well, so I've read.

Graphics card: it's not an issue for me, I'm going to work with audio exclusively. I figured that just in case I had some demanding video apps I might choose ASRock Radeon RX 580 Phantom Gaming 8GB GDDR5, I think GPUs generally are not very troublesome? Maybe I'm wrong.

Drives: Finally, the M.2 drives.. I've seen people recommending the Samsung 970 EVO Plus and it has great speeds and capacity for good price. A-DATA on the other hands is some twice cheaper for similar specs. Am I missing something?

I guess PSU, case and other secondary components are not something to worry about.

What is essential for me:

• Stability, speed and good performance, compatibility with audio apps (DAWs, Pro Tools, plugins)
• Thunderbolt 3 connection (it works with add-in cards AFAIK)
• fast Internet connection, be it via ethernet cable or WiFi
• Airdrop

What I heard doesn't work but I don't need that therefore I'm not worrying about it:

• sleep
• hotplugging TB3 devices (it's ok as long as it works I might just plug and unplug prior to booting)
• updates (I'm on High Sierra on my MacBook and everything runs smoothly so I guess this is not an issue)

What would be nice to have but not essential:

• TimeMachine backups
• Dual boot with Windows on the second M.2 or SATA drive

I'm wondering whether different versions of OS X impose different hardware limitations or performance drains? I'm aiming at Mojave or Catalina.

If somebody has time and will to check my build with what they know and help me sort out this puzzle that'd be grand.
Thanks for reading and all the content here

Hey! Did you manage to get your system running? I am planning a similar build for audio production and was wondering if you were able to get yours working well.

My main concern is Thunderbolt as well, using a Focusrite Clarett 8PreX but through a Thunderbolt PCIe card, rather than built into the motherboard like the x570 Taichi.

Let me know if you have anything to share